Howdy. I've continued to investigate this monochrome/maroon square thing. The Dev and Moderator's solutions work ("I" triggers it.) I also read Jordan's blog post on the minimal tutorial. And I have some thoughts I'm willing to offer up as a player and user. (Also, you'll note these screenshots were taken in the "beautiful" setting, so they're significantly clearer.

1. I like the minimally invasive tutorial. I've been speed-walking on a treadmill lately while playing Assassin's Creed 2. No joke, I've been walking and going through the tutorial for that game since last Friday. Too much tutorial disincentivizes play.

2. Just as too much is harmful, too little is also harmful. Given that I had accessed a core component of the game, that is, inventory, and thought it was a bug, one might argue that there is then far too little. I think something as simple as "Inventory (i)" printed either at the top of the screen, at the top of the "character card," or even along the top base of the maroon square would immediately clear this confusion up.

3. Clicking off a character, or selecting another, ought to immediately close the previous inventory. As it is, I can have multiple inventories open at once. It makes for a confusing play space, especially when I'm trying to figure out who's inventory is who's. If the Devs want to have multiple inventories being open as a thing, then either connect the inventory square to the possessing character with a colored line, or find a work around. I can see how having multiple opoen would be useful when constructing, or even combatting, but having them as static overlays isn't effective.

One Inventory Open:

(Note that the inventory square covers a character. Not very useful in a pinch; also, why is it in color with inventories open?)

Two Inventories Open:

(At this point I'm totally baffled; one character appears to have Antorian walls I can't move, while the other has pellets I can't move, and both squares cover characters who can no longer be selected while the maroon squares cover them).

Then there's this mess:

(In this case, I teleported back to find that my engineer had decided he'd rather be security, and that the refrigerator was overlaid on one of the crew (he's probably dead now, fridges are heavy), and then the Antorian Wall-filled inventory locked and wouldn't close. I opened another just because, which didn't lock. But at this point the build became unplayable.)

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I'm not sure this is the most intuitive version of inventory management SC can use. If the Dev is looking for simplicity and streamlined efficience...after having gone at this for days, I'm just not convinced this is as simple as it could be. And I agree with Jordan's blog that simplicity and cross-comprehensibility is the best of all worlds for video games like these.